Bow Now, Don't Stumble
by Estoma
Summary: When the rebels have finished compiling a list of his sins, he has a bare five minutes to defend himself, so Caesar asks, "When did I ever do anything but try to help your children?" Cover image by AprilLittle.


**Author's Note: For Rue, with love and many Christmas wishes, as part of the Caesar's Palace Secret Santa Exchange. Using the prompt 'eyes are windows to the soul', and ten additional prompts from Caesar's Palace for ten 100 word drabbles. **

_01. Static_

Caesar Flickerman makes a point to never to forget a face. Maybe it's because he'll be interviewing one of the twenty four tributes in three weeks' time (unless there's another disaster reminiscent of the 59th games: an out of control mutt, two hearts ceasing to beat rather than one). But within his powdered breast, tucked safe and secure between his brittle ribs, there's another reason. Nobody remembers a loser, and there are twenty three of them each year. With their quivering lips, their nervous twitches, or their arrogant yet shaky smiles, each tribute deserves to be remembered, and Caesar does.

_02. Precocious_

As a judge of character, Caesar prides himself. He was always a small child, with thin shoulders; perfect to fit into a locker, and a soft head ready to be slammed against the metal doors, over and over. But, the bullies (of which there were plenty at the _Sanserden Institute)_ never touched him. With one well-placed comment, _How's your father doing? _The boys twice his size would crumple, the shadow of a man and a broken bottle hovering behind their eyes. It was just simple psychology, really, and Caesar takes the lessons from the playground up to the big stage.

_03. Intrepid_

The Capitol is a world away from the neat, paved streets of District 1, where Caesar grew up. The spotlights might hurt his eyes, but he's making new roads through unchartered territory for a District boy, and cutting swathes through the ranks of his contemporaries. A simple word here, an astute observation there, and Caesar Flickerman is on the move-he's climbing mountains. It's not long before he's at the top, gazing down at the crowds, and while the lights still cut into his eyes and dance before his face even in a darkened room, the view is pretty damn good.

_04. Explorer_

Like the explorers of old, before the maps had been filled in, rubbed out, filled in again then censored, there is nowhere he can't go, and he has the tools to do it. While he's not sailing in a flimsy contraption of wood, tar and canvas, nor probing the subterranean depths, Caesar still goes where none have been before, at least, on national broadcast. With a well-placed smile, an open question and a sympathetic shrug, Caesar shoulders aside the rubble of tight lips, clenched fingers, and reveals the secrets that he knows dwell within the breasts of all his tributes.

_05. Inspire_

Caesar is the darling of the crowds just as much as the tributes are. It's a tremendous journey for a boy who's only alive to smile and bow because a muscled and trained eighteen year old stepped forward to take his place when Caesar's name was lifted high in the claws of his escort at the 51st games. He reflects, in his spare moments, that life is just made up of near misses and wasted opportunities. If not for 120 pounds of muscle and testosterone, Caesar would not live to inspire the crowds with his wit, his charm, his essence.

_06. Yellow_

He likes to think yellow is for sunshine, youth and beginnings, not just his wig for the first year he does the tribute interviews. By the end of the first week of the games, yellow is for the bile the leaks from a slashed stomach, along with ropes of pale intestines, or oozes, with a child's life force, from an infected wound for want of costly medicine. In a way, yellow is a new beginning for Caesar and he knows now that the tributes are a product that he has to sell because their lives might just depend on him.

_07. Innovate_

Like all products, the right marketing strategy must be found, and Caesar's the master. In one gaze, it's easy to tell what each tribute needs. Some are easy to sell; Fallon Lockyer, District 2, with more victors in his family than most Districts could ever claim. The boy's a nervous wreck, stumbles over his words and looks like he wants to bolt, but when Caesar asks him to show off his training scars, the screens fills with his taut muscles and the shadows fall just so between his shoulders. The audience forget that he can hardly string two words together.

_08. Unique_

Of course, there's an exception to every rule (and Caesar likes to think he's written the rule when it comes to making an audience fall in love). Some tributes send an ache to spear up between his ribs and leave him short of breath. Johanna Mason's makeup is smeared down her face when she rubs her knuckles into her teary eyes and she looks at Caesar as if he wears the black hood of an executioner. He can feel the audience's interest ebb like the tides, and he's glad for the girl that she had only three minutes on stage.

_09. Bang_

Caesar always liked to go out with a bang; a final flourish, a styled bow practised a thousand times before a mirror, just one last wink that a thousand ladies thought was directed right at them. Apparently, so do the rebels. The rebellion ends in a blaze of fire and the agonised screams of the children are lost to the roaring flames as they consume cloth, fat, skin and bones. Not even the snow can quench them. So, in his apartment, lit by the flickering flames outside, Caesar powders his wig one more time and waits for the rebel soldiers.

_10. Birth_

Like all the prominent Capitolites, Caesar Flickerman is put on trial after the rebellion, after the bodies have been hauled away and fresh, pink skin has been laid over the burns. It's the tremulous birth of a new Panem, and Paylor and her associates are deciding if Caesar has the right to live in this fresh new world. They compile a list of his sins (furthering the monstrosity that is the Hunger Games), and at the end, he has a bare five minutes to defend himself. Caesar asks, "When did I ever do anything but try to help your children?"


End file.
